


In Conversation

by billspilledquill



Category: Naruto
Genre: ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Character Study, Gen, M/M, Microfic, Missing Scene, T for trashmouth, they are very angry and they have every right to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25777975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/billspilledquill/pseuds/billspilledquill
Summary: “But it was the opposite. In reality, I was just jealous. You had a strength that I did not. You had always walked in front of me.”Misconceptions Sasuke had about Naruto, and in retaliation, about himself.
Relationships: Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 8
Kudos: 63





	In Conversation

**Author's Note:**

> All my fics are basically about the same exact thing but Kishimoto pulled out the swing 1000 times and we bought it so, uh, I’ll bring whatever content I need into this world with my evil hands.

  
“I’m serious.”

Naruto was offended; his fingers kept moving against the bedsheet: twisting, grasping, moving in circles. “So am I,” he said.

“I will leave this village.”

“I know.”

“So why?”

Naruto smiled, bashful and carefree. “You keep saying that ever since we got here.”

Sasuke set his eyes on the bruise there, blooming black on Naruto’s left cheek. He laid his head on the pillow and ached all over.

“Just think about it,” Naruto said.

The machines kept beeping. Sasuke had been staring at the same white celling for three days. Naruto trashed his sheets beside him, and listening to the sound of sheet shuffling, Sasuke knew exactly where it hurt.

“I’m not going to live with you, Naruto.”

Naruto looked at him over one bandaged eye. “Okay,” he said.

The answer, quick, expectant, and rushed, somehow made him angry. Sasuke answered in a hissed whisper, “You are unusually relenting today.”

Naruto laughed; it came out like a wheeze. “That’s because we blew our arms off. It hurts a lot, y’know.” He laughed harder. “’Course you know.”

“Why do you want me to live with you?”

“I told you.”

“Just answer the question.”

“Cuz I want to.”

“ _I_ don’t want to.”

Naruto did the best impression of a snicker, trapped in tubes and bandages on a white hospital bed. “That’s why I _asked_ you, bastard. Don’t do anything you don’t want to. Fuck knows you haven’t done anything you didn’t want ever since I met you.”

If Sasuke moved enough, he could reach Naruto’s bed. He wondered if he can still punch him—if he can still land a punch against him. “We almost died,” Sasuke said instead, his wrist brushing against his many wounds.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“You almost _died_ an hour ago, Naruto.”

“I said,” Naruto drawled, his voice carrying far, as though Sasuke was deaf, “that I didn’t do _enough_. What I did before—dying or whatever—that was a promise. It doesn’t have to do with anything; stop twisting my words.”

Sasuke clenched his teeth. “I want to fucking hit you right now.”

Naruto snorted. “Save it for our fight.”

A part of Sasuke—the one desensitised by Naruto’s words since childhood—wanted to laugh. “You really think that,” he stated, gasping a little as he twisted to meet him. “You think—”

“I didn’t do enough,” Naruto said. “You know it. I could have done so much more.”

“How?”

“Your clan. Your brother. I could’ve.”

“Regret doesn’t suit you.”

He heard the sound of a bed creak. Sasuke had closed his eyes; Naruto must had too.

The two beds were short of an inch before their mattress could touch. Their arms were bandaged near their chest, and Sasuke breathed a sigh.

“You wouldn’t want to live with me,” Sasuke said eventually. Time passed unnoticed. Naruto, having fell asleep, blinked drowsily. Sasuke stared at the bruise, and thought about how much he had marred this body a thousand times over—black on black on black, like spray-paint over the canvas. It had never been anything else than covering, cowering beneath the lines, and hide the truth; whatever truth was. 

“What? Why?”

 _You’re too much_ , he wanted to say. _I’m too much. The world is too much._ Sasuke wanted it gone sometimes; he wanted to disappear for longer. To live like this—hypocritically, like nothing ever happened, in coordination with the pretense the world demanded. Sasuke wanted to move closer to the side; he wondered if touching Naruto would feel real, after a time.

“You don’t need to do anything anymore. You have won the world over.”

It was a sleepy voice that answered, “I wanted to give what I had. They wanted me. I thought living together would be what you want.” A pause. “I’m your only friend, Sasuke.”

“ _This_ ,” Sasuke snapped, his throat contracting painfully, “isn’t how it should work. You don’t owe anything to anyone. You certainly don’t fucking owe me.”

“But I want to—”

Sasuke felt the ache, and asked, “Aren’t you tired? You have always— been like this. Doing this. Saying _it_ ,” he said, adding almost as an afterthought, “I fucking am. I’m tired of chasing after shadows.”

There was deafening silence, and then, “ _Fuck you_ ,” Naruto cried, fully awake, his voice startling with a fury he hadn’t heard in their fight, that he hadn’t heard for a long time. “ _Fuck_. I am fucking tired. Of course I am. I was nothing, Sasuke. And you were—” Naruto’s eyes were incredulous, looking as though he still quite believe that he was talking to him; Sasuke shouldered the gaze, and felt all the burden of what was behind it. Naruto’s legs kept jittering.

“You were—” he trailed off. “And I wanted—to be everything. I wanted to be you. I wanted to be worth something. And I—” he winced as he pulled at the IV line, twisting away— “I want a lot of things. I have always chased after you. I am not—"

Sasuke moved. The machines stopped beeping.

“What the fuck—”

The bed convulsed. Naruto instinctively shot up both arms before wincing in pain at his severed limb. Sasuke crawled over to his bed with a mess of lines and tubes. 

He branded a fist, the action detaching the IV line from the back of his hand, and hit Naruto square on the jaw.

“Who do you think you are? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

He was screaming something; he couldn’t hear himself. Naruto’s eyes were clear, unafraid. His hand was on his side, and kept twitching.

“I’m your friend,” he said. “I want to live with you.”

Something at the back his head; nagging him painfully. The world seemed to oscillate in the corners, and in its center Naruto was looking at him, waiting and expectant. He could’ve killed him here; he could’ve died with him.

He was grasping his hand. They shook and trembled at the same rhythm.

Naruto just said, “You have always been better at knowing what to do.”

Sasuke staggered backwards. “I just punched you.”

Naruto titled his chin. “This is not a fight.”

“Fight me back.”

“No.”

“That’s all we can do,” Sasuke said, his eyes blinking towards the light on the celling. “That’s all I can do.”

“So punch me,” Naruto said easily, battled, bruised, slightly bloody as red seeped from his wounds. “I won’t die.”

Sasuke made a sound, resigned, settled his head at the front of Naruto’s shirt. The bed was starting to wobble under the weight. Naruto’s hand twitched in his palm.

It was tiring. The battle. The fight. They had battled each other to death only to leave a ghost of their history behind. It was tiring; he wanted to sleep. He wanted to stay.

“If you’re not going to punch me, you might as well get off me. You’re fucking heavy.”

“You’re better,” Sasuke said, not moving. “There’s better out there.”

Sasuke felt the breathing from the chest beneath as he laid his forehead on it, exhaling softly. Naruto struggled. 

“I’m not _better_ ,” Naruto replied, sounding angry all of a sudden. “I’m not what you think I am.”

Sasuke lifted up his face, from up close, the bruise startled like a print, like a tattoo. Something permanent there; something craved into skin, steep; thicker than blood. 

Sasuke said, “You are me, then.”

Maybe they have lived together. This whole time—when Sasuke stood beside the graves, there was Naruto painting them in bright colours. Running away from the authorities while Sasuke avoided them—allowed the world to see who he was instead of hiding from— _you are me; whatever’s left. You’re the entirety of what’s left_. This whole time they have lived together. He wouldn’t have survived otherwise.

“I’m not living with you,” Sasuke said, lowering his head unto Naruto’s shoulder, and, breathing, breathed in the scent of battlefield, blood, and antiseptics.

Naruto said, “Alright.”  
  
They stayed like that, raw in their wounds; their bruises still tender. They stayed like that, so tender, so tender it hurt.   
  



End file.
